


Starlight and Shadow

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: Also Star is called Astra because LIES, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, And then we have Force Bond instead of BMB, F/M, It's not exactly like the movie it has twists and stuff that remind you this is Star Vs, Lotsa fun, Major Spoilers for TFA, Marco has a double personality, Marco is Ben and Sol is Kylo and Sol sounds like Monster Arm/Dark! Marco, Marco is literally a misunderstood bad boy, Reylo - Freeform, Since it's the movie with different characters, Star is Rey, There's also Janackie, hey guess who dies???, it's kinda poetic and serious, trash, yessssss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 10:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6047442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Behold, the Starco/Reylo AU nobody wanted.</p><p>Because Star needed a droid, a lightsaber, and the powers of the Force and a Jedi Destiny obviously.</p><p>And because Marco needed angst and glorious hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> So Gravity Falls ended and I cried and suffered and caught the flu.
> 
> And asked myself; "what now?"
> 
> The answer floated down from the sky like bird shit, fast and unexpectedly disgusting.
> 
> Reylo trash in Starco form.
> 
> I saw Star Wars (finally) last week and I went in like "you're gonna be normal, non obsessive, the only ship here is Luke and Leia and if they are adorable like I heard Finn and Poe" (Finn and Poe were adorable let me say right now)
> 
> Then I came out like "Kylo Ren has glorious hair."
> 
> *looks at cinnamon roll Jedi child*
> 
> *looks at angsty emo trash bag whom she hates*
> 
> "Ya'll need to be together, to bring you know, balance to the force."
> 
> And twenty three fanfics later and an untold amount of fanart and headcanons, I have _this_
> 
> Welcome to my twisted trash compactor.

Another day, another food portion, another tally mark, another long long lonely night.

 

She couldn't remember the last conversation she had had with someone that wasn't about trading scrap.

 

She couldn't remember the last time she had slept somewhere that wasn't sandy and smelled metallic.

 

She couldn't remember _anything_ really.

 

Somewhere she had been told she had been sold into this life. A family who had no use for her, so they left her behind.

 

Sometimes she would dream, try to see them, those people who had abandoned her. She couldn't call the woman mother, nor the man father. They didn't deserve it. It didn't seem right.

 

Yet, she didn't blame them entirely, debt was debt, and at least they might be alive. That was better than if they had been killed for the crime. She supposed.

 

Sometimes she pretended they were coming back for her. 

 

Sometimes she believed it.

 

And in the nights when desert storms came up so quickly and she couldn't hear her thoughts over the crash of thunder she had very different dreams.

 

They weren't of sand, and dry air, and those people she figured she should know. They were of long Summer afternoons in a cool garden. Of voices she couldn't place. Of fire and gunshots. Maybe it was a book she read, something she had heard of in the market. Though she couldn't recall the last time she had really had a book that held stories and not mechanical guides. And the dreams, had seemed so, real. The smoke in her lungs, the sun in her hair. Not the sun in the desert here, torrid and unforgiving. Cool shady sun, giving a needed warmth. It confused her to no end.

 

Still she went on, whether by stubbornness or loyalty or something else altogether she stayed. Stayed in the vast nothingness that was Jakku.

 

She wondered what would happen if she were to leave. To go and find a better life, maybe as a pilot or mechanic or even just a servant or worker. Anything was better than scavenging for junk.

 

Sometimes she'd find something really wonderful, but she knew by now that her only buyer knew she was desperate. A fair deal had not been given for 7 years. For that was how far she could remember.

 

She'd have almost decided to leave, to ask for money insted of rations. To buy a ticket, hitch a ride, anything really to abandon this foresaken land. As soon as she had though, she'd imagine her family returning to find her gone. She imagined never finding them again. Chances forever lost, and she couldn't go. She would stay on Jakku until she or the planet had come to rot. 

 

Yes. Or her name wasn't Astra um,

 

Or her name wasn't Astra.

 

* * *

 

Some days were better than others.

 

Some days he could ignore everthing he said, everything he did. He could tell himself it wasn't him.

 

There was two minds inhabiting his head.

 

They fought more than he did.

 

Then other days one side would look at what the other was doing and cry out.

 

_Why?_

 

_Why are you doing this._

 

And the other would always reply.

 

**You know why.**

 

* * *

 

No one could really tell what went on in Sol Ara's head. What he was thinking, especially thanks to the mask.

 

Most figured it was just him grumbling to himself in a monotone voice 

 

"Rebels."

* * *

 

Still, the mental arguements never ended. 

 

He would never admit it, but anyone paying attention could tell.

 

Including Snoke, who was very displeased.

 

"Whenever your thoughts seem to be recceeding back to their former ignorant state, codemn them my boy. Put them to sudden and immediate death. Banish them completely, expel all things of them from your mind. Eventually they will come no more. Your light side will only bring you pain and weakness. Remember all it afforded you?"

 

He did remember, he remembered betrayal, and hatred, and brutal teasing. He remembered abandonment and misunderstanding. He remembered pain. Searing pain. Embracing the darkness meant losing the emotion and without it, he would feel no more pain. Was that not true freedom?

 

Some days, he forgot what it felt like to care. The darkness taking over everything in him and casting out that messy thing called empathy and regret.

 

 Then the night would come, and sleep would not. If it did he would dream.

 

There he'd see the faces of the innocent, the innocent he had thought so little of to have them executed by his order or by his hand. He'd see his parents faces. His parents who had left him. And suddenly he'd wonder, was that the whole truth? Or just the truth Snoke had made him believe.

 

In the nights, surrounded by the darkness, he supposed he should have been at one with it. Peaceful. Unfeeling. 

 

Yet, at night was when he was most doubtful. When all his inner demons whispered things that made him wonder if they were demons at all. Where was the line drawn between conscious and sin? He seemed to have muddled it and confused it somewhere.

 

If the day was Sol's, the night's were Marco's.

 

The ghost whom he had once been.

 

Marco was dead, he always said. Marco was dead and I have killed him.

 

Yet, even the dead can say things. Every book you read has a little proof of that.

 

Marco said things during the night when the only source of light was the stars.

 

In the daylight the bright, unbearable sun always beat down on him. He was called Sol yet he wished not be compared to such an irritating being.

 

It was a source of light perhaps but to him it stood for all Leader Smoke had said the Light was. Foolish, headstrong, annoying. Had little to no purpose except to be a nuisance.

 

The starlight was different. Marco knew it, Sol wouldn't admit it.

 

The starlight was gentle, calm, kind. It encouraged peace. It was not forceful. It was not boastful. It was soft and beautiful. It held more secrets and untold knowledge in it's many parts than the one singular sun ever did in it's obvious and haughty existence. 

 

Marco admitted that light had to be strong for it's presence to cut through the darkness despite being millions and billions of light years away. 

 

The stars brought hope.

 

Then the sun would rise, and Sol rose with it and there was no hope.

 

* * *

 

Somewhere, things were happening.

 

Decisions were being made. Life changing decisions.

 

A decision to rethink one's entire existence.

 

And with decision comes action.

 

Thankfully, both decision and action were to do what is right. And that is what was being done.

 

Sol muddled that night, and grumbled and angsted and let his anger out in all the worst ways.

 

Marco laughed in his mental face.

 

 _Serves you right, someone here is not_   _a_   _mindless idiot sheep._

 

* * *

"Terrible twenty-twos."

Muttered those poor souls that had to repair the Dark Lord's temper tantrum remnants.

* * *

 

Somewhere, something was happening.

 

And that night Astra dreamt of water. Long expansive seas, a planet made of seas. 

 


	2. Our Past Proceeds Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 6 years previously.

Watching, waiting, in the shadows. Scarcely breathing.

Words exchanged, harsh words. Commanding voices. Cowering replies.

Two eyes as blue as evening stars could barely be seen peering round the corner.

Two blue eyes, filled with fear, but more so, anger.

She wished to cry out, to use her voice. The voice of royalty, the voice that holds a precedent. She had been trained in it for years. Boring training, but she wished with her whole soul she could use it now.

She couldn't. To speak, would be fatal, surely.

She could only watch from the shadows, as everything she knew and loved was torn asunder.

King and Queen Papillon had been fair rulers. Just rulers. Their land was still farther behind the times, but not every planet could hold the technologies of Bespin.

They had been happy, their people happy. Their daughter, Star, very happy. Raised as a princess. Trained with her future duty and yet full of freedom, of joy.

Then the First Order had come. Their terror had come with it.

The palace was ransacked, the villages burned. The crops used for the feeding of their soldiers. Same with the slaughter of livestock. The people starved. Those that didn't were massacred.

They had gone into hiding. Quick escapes, desperate pleas to old alliances. Fear of the Dark Side's growing power left them without a friend in their system.

A life of luxury, of freedom, of privilege, turned to poverty in an instant.

Then they had been discovered.

"Hide." it had been an order from her mother. The tone she once would have resented, but now clung to desperately, aching to hear it's owner speak again.

They had been captured. Charged with treason, rebellion, resistance, and the keeping of valuable information from the First Order.

Star had stayed in the shadows. Dressed as a servant, or even less. Hair hacked off to an unassuming length. Hoping no one would pay her mind if she was seen. Somehow, she hadn't been.

Now she watched as her parents faced their ends.

Pride. Papillon Pride. Her mother, a queen. She would never bow or acknowledge anything less than royalty with the submission they demanded of her now.

Fear, so much fear. Star had never thought her father a coward, but a few times she had not been so sure. Now he stood against them. Protecting his wife, his servants, his guards. No matter the cost. She was proud of him, but it would not help her sleep in the nights to come.

Then the shots.

It was over. There was no more.

Mewni was no more.

King and Queen Papillon of Mewni, were no more.

Star Papillon, Princess of Mewni, was no more.

She had died with the last breath of her parents.

She was an orphan, a begger, a scavenger.

She was without home or identity.

For if she were to still be her old self, she would be killed instantly.

To live was to die.

So she fled. Unsure, alone. Into the night. Two blue eyes lost to the universe.

* * *

Escape.

The first word in his head and the first action he could think of doing.

Something was wrong.

Everything was wrong.

It wasn't the Force telling him either, he had seen things, heard things. Things that had lit up every warning sign in his brain.

"You are too paranoid." The others said. "A Jedi must take some risks, a Jedi mustn't be afraid of every unforeseen circumstance."

He wasn't afraid. He was terrified.

He wasn't paranoid, he was right.

A prophet in his own country it is said, is never heeded.

He left that night. Snuck away under cover of darkness.

It was not cowardly, he had warned and they hadn't listened.

Now he would escape.

Though he had no idea where to go.

His parents had such hopes. They had been so proud, their son, training under the tutelage of the greatest Jedi in the Galaxy.

To go back with his suppositions and conspiracies, and then to be proven wrong, would bring shame.

His parents would forgive him, they would not fault him in the least. Yet, he would fault himself, guilt eating away at him for the rest of his days.

Yet, suppose he was right. Suppose they were all meeting their doom. Would his parents rejoice that he was spared? Or would they feel ashamed he had not saved his peers?

He wondered if the best option would be to let them believe him dead.

His mind centered on another thing entirely then, and he feared he had been found out. He could only hope it was his Teacher and not his nemesis discovering him.

Yet, it was neither. No one coming after him at all. He had felt another presence. Though not at all what he had expected.

Blue eyes. Deep Blue. Startlingly contrast to the camouflaging palette of raggedy clothes. Fear, anger, and the weight of a thousand other emotions turning round in them. Those eyes had seen far too much.

It was still. Brown meeting blue and asking the simplest of questions.

' _Light or Dark?_ '

He was still a novice. Still learning to attune his mind to understanding. Still, when he tried, he found no malicious aura.

Both just stood, caught like a deer in a beam of light.

He tried to take a step forward.

"No closer, I have a knife, and I will use it." She procured as such with haste from her side. "State your allegiances." The tone was sharp, surprisingly powerful. The accent, definitely unexpected from that of a common servant girl.

"I am a Padwan. I swear allegiance to the Free Republic." He admitted, albeit naively. Though he wasn't to know that enemy forces lurked just over the other side of the woods. Doing their dirty work where no one could hear the screams. The First Order wasn't powerful enough for that, right?

She lowered her knife, then raised it again. "How do I know you are telling the truth? And you aren't a spy for the First Order?"

"How do I know you aren't a spy for the First Order? Why do I not ready my weapon against you?"

"You're really training to be a Jedi?" She asked hesitantly.

"Under the very best in the Star System, or at least I was, until about 8pm last night."

"And why, may I ask, are you not anymore?"

"I fear for my life."

She looked perplexed at him. As he noted other things about her. She was heavily underfed, her eyes betrayed exhaustion, yet her posture was still of an air that seemed oddly regal.

"May I ask what you are doing out here?"

She looked for a moment, as if she was going to reply something that inferred it wasn't his business, but suddenly she stopped and stared straight at him, lowering her knife.

"I fear for mine."

"Are you trying to escape something?" He tried.

She looked away for a moment and then up to the gaps in the trees. He thought perhaps she had some sort of inner war with herself.

"Yes."

"So am I. Where are you trying to go?"

She focused her gaze back at him.

"Where it's safe."

"Me Too."

* * *

Life on Mewni was no absolute paradise.

There wasn't much of anything in particular to draw visitors to the small island kingdom or the planet on which it resided.

It was mostly farmers, merchants, and simple craftsman, at least inland.

Farther towards the swamps and wastes resided the more varied residents, any number of creatures.

Some held ties to the light.

Some did not.

However that is where Papillion Pride had made too much of a mistake.

The same could have been said for the population of people living on Mewni.

Yet, Queen and King Paillion did not realize this fact until a betrayal was evident.

They simply saw the monsters as First Order Sympathizers and the People as loyal to them.

They had been so very wrong.

Their daughter had come to slightly different conclusions when all this had come to light, just before her life had plunged into the darkness.

She no longer trusted people.

She no longer trusted monsters.

Truly, she no longer trusted anyone.

That was probably for the best.

* * *

So why did she allow herself to trust _him_?

Two souls sprinted through the brush, directed toward the closest settlement the Padwan knew of.

His clothes would give away his former alliances obviously. The Jedi School was no secret to the townsfolk. Just its location.

Perhaps if he could fashion a lie that he had rescued this girl from some fate.

He wasn't quite sure what yet, what could he pass her off as? A lost princess?

That might have been stretching it.

Still wasn't it a proper thing for him to escort her back to some safety? If he could pass her off as nobility at least, it wouldn't look too odd. Hopefully.

Then they could both escape.

* * *

Sometimes it is easier to focus on the current task when you are overwhelmed about the next step. The current task being running for her life.

Yet, she could not get the clouded feeling out of her head that it was full of thought. It felt intrusive, as if she was not in control of what her own mind was doing.

She did remember reading somewhere of Jedi mind tricks. She eyed her running companion suspiciously.

"Are you in my head?" She asked quite candidly without beating round any of the brush they pushed out of their path.

"No, I'm not trained enough to do that yet, and I wouldn't do that to you anyway, not without your permission."

"Not even unintentionally?"

"I'm not even trying to use any power at all right now, I'm just thinking."

Thinking, thinking hard. Yet, not trying to see her thoughts.

Then why was she able to grasp a few of his?

* * *

Perched on the edge of civilization, she could look down on the little village from the short hill above.

It slept peacefully.

Dawn was still a little or a long ways off, she had lost track of time.

It looked very comforting, like Mewni from her window before she fell asleep.

Calm and content in the palette of night hues splayed across it.

A trillion billion stars giving light above.

A soft humming from a kitchen maid below, just sweeping out the days crumbs before heading to her own bed.

She was terribly homesick, but all she had to do was close her eyes to see the village covered in fire. The terrible screams and shouts, some of fear, some of something worse. The shouts of those who had given away her parents position.

The young Jedi watched her reactions curiously.

"So you understand what we're doing right?"

"Yes." She answered tentatively but still did not lose her gaze on the little town.

"Do you think you can do it?" He really did wonder.

"Yes. I know I can." With an assured nod of her head as she turned to look him in the eye.

The steady and slightly intimidating stare threw him off guard.

"Right, good, then let's get some rest before the sun comes around so we can start out when the village awakens."

He gingerly took off his outer robe rolling it into a head rest as he found a comfortable spot where the softer leaves had gathered on the ground. The night air bit him with first contact but he settled into it after a moment.

He noted her rags held less thickness and only one layer to his three, she must be numb to the chill of the air.

She stood hesitant for a moment. Feeling a little awkward, but she set her face into grim line of determination as she bunched a few leaves herself. A small but good proximity away.

He felt compassion for her as he removed the robe from under his head and brought it over to her.

She eyed him with confusion.

"Here, you can have it. You don't have as many layers, and even though you might not have been cold when we were running, it's easy to get cold when you're asleep."

She considered refusing it. Papillion pride seeping into her, but with one sharp blow of the wind she thought better of it and took the robe with a soft and grateful "Thank you."

Still as she settled back onto her pile of leaves she felt an unease run through her regarding their plan of action for the coming day.

"Um, you" she whispered softly through the night.

"What is it?" He asked from his own resting place, realizing she didn't know his name and vice versa.

"What's your name?" She spoke his thought.

"Marco, what's yours?"

"Sta—" she began without thinking but stopped herself. Star Papillion was no more. "Astra. It's Astra."

"Nice to meet you." Marco said almost jovially in his state of exhaustion.

"It's nice to meet you too."

With introductions settled, Marco started to drift off before he felt himself jarred awake again by the soft but still oddly commanding voice.

"Marco," she began again, this time, properly.

"Yes?"

"I don't think this is such a good idea."

Marco felt himself jolt awake.

"Running away?"

"No," she said to his slight relief and slight discomfort combined "The plan."

"You don't think you can pass off as a lost princess?" Marco could understand if she didn't, but she already could act in a manner that showed etiquette and breeding, he wasn't sure how and he hadn't asked because she hadn't seemed too keen on giving information. He was almost sure she'd even given him a fake name.

"No I just don't think we should do this, I mean first it's not like there are any widely known lost princesses that we could use to validate the story in the first place."

"No, there was a Princess Star Papillion just recently actually. When the First Order ransacked her kingdom and killed her parents she was unable to be located."

Star felt her stomach drop, so they did know she had escaped.

"How do you know this?" Who in the First Order was he under to get such information?

"We get news of all kinds at the Jedi school. It's used as an example of the atrocities that can be performed in the name of the Force under the Dark Side."

Marco had felt sick when he'd heard it, the Princess was only a few years younger than himself he supposed, and now she had no family and no home to return to and no title to claim. All in one moment. His escape was out of his own choice and his own fear, he felt a little foolish in comparison. Yet hers would be from sheer will to live. He might die if he had stayed, but she definitely would.

"How do you know she's dead?" Star asked again. Not quite sure how this would make her point but very desperate now, if she was known to be gone there was probably hoards of bounty hunters ready to turn her in now. And if any one person down in that village was a First Order Sympathizer, even if they didn't truly believe her to be her true identity. She was better than dead.

"I don't, she could be alive, I hope she is alive, for her sake." Marco admitted.

"Then what if she is alive? What if we are taking her chance for escape?" Since for all technical purposes, they were.

"Then it will be a small lie to get out of this system, then we can tell the truth when we get there and explain that our lives were in danger here. I'm sure the Free Republic will understand." They might also inform his parents, but that was a risk he had to take.

"What if," Star began with tremble to her voice "what if we aren't given to the Free Republic, what if they hand me or us over to the First Order for reward?"

Marco hadn't completely accepted that as a possibility, the First Order and all it's allies always seemed so far away. Yet, he realized, they definitely weren't if his instinct was correct and his reasons for leaving the school in the first place had any basis.

"What if they realize I match the description, same height, same eyes, same hair?" Star continued, sitting up from her makeshift bed now to wrap her arms around her knees, trembling more with each word as she tucked the robe closer around her.

"How do you know what she looks like?"

There was a silence.

"Astra?" Marco tried again.

"What if, my name isn't Astra?"

"I suspected as such, you didn't sound very sure of your name."

"What if, it's Star?" She braced herself.

"Oh well then I can see why you chose Astra it's—" Then Marco halted in his thought as realization hit him at light speed. He sat straight up and stared at her.

"You're—" he couldn't form the words " _you're_ —"

"Yes. I don't know why I told you."

He scrambled to his feet, unsure of the protocol, should he bow from the neck or the waist or—? Shouldn't he remember this? Hadn't his parents, well his father, been adamant he learn? Another round of shame washed over him once more, it had happened often since he went renegade.

"Sit. I'm not royalty anymore. I'm just Star." She huffed with still that shake of fear behind her voice.

"I was taught to be respectful, though."

"You're fine, sit down. I trust you, probably not a good decision, and I guess we'll find out tomorrow if it is, or if you'll just turn me in to the Stormtroopers." She said agitatedly. Feeling rather exposed now and pulling in any amount of remaining dignity and snobbery to atone for the loss.

"I'm not going to turn you in, I said I was going to help you escape, that hasn't changed." He felt an anger in his tone, he didn't like it. He hated getting angry or letting himself become angry. There was something about himself when he was angry that scared him.

"Yet." And with that she turned away from him on her bed of leaves and pretended to sleep.

Marco lied back down on his own foliage and stared up at the sky. Controlling his breathing to calm his anger.

"I'm going to help you escape." He repeated softly, not knowing if she was listening or had already drifted off.

She was listening, and she had heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote more for this???? Why am I writing for this??? I read the movie novelization and got inspired?? I'm trash? Nobody knows. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ It's been months.
> 
> Alternatively titled: the headcanon chapter.
> 
> Me: _"You can't keep Butterfly as Star's last name that doesn't fit the aesthetic™ that's like calling Leia's adopted dad; Bill Oregano."_  
>  Also Me: _@Me "Wtf do you want me to do?"_  
>  Me: _"Idk, find the word for butterfly in Idk-" ***spins wheel*** "French"_.  
>  Also Me: _"Yes, good work. y'all."_


End file.
